On Nordstream explosion "Russia denies responsibility for the explosions. But few doubt that the Kremlin did it."
I can stop reading at this line to know that this isn't journalism, it's opinion at best and propaganda at worst. I expect better from HN.
At this point if Moscow gets obliterated in a Nuclear Mushroom cloud, I expect the next mornings headlines to be "And here's how Russia benefits from this"
You denounce their pronouncement but what have you added to the discussion with your comment?
The explosions benefit Russia because it gives them cover for a permanent stop to supplying Germany with gas, something that was already a given because Germany would never buy gas from Russia again due to their atrocities in the war. In the Russians' mind it gives them the "moral high ground" rather than humiliation and makes out the West to be the villain. This is typical Russian logic.
On the other side there is no rational reason for the West to destroy the pipelines, outside of strained conspiracy theories that the US wanted to stop Germany from buying gas from Russia and buy it from the US, which was already happening. Nevermind that the risk/reward of such an action would be stupid for the US and that it has other, much safer ways to achieve the same result.
> no rational reason for the West to destroy the pipelines, outside of strained conspiracy theories that the US wanted to stop Germany from buying gas from Russia and buy it from the US
What makes it strained? Even if Germany didn't buy gas, and wasn't planning to buy gas, that could change any time. Now it cannot.
The gas shortage in Europe has only just begun. We will suffer from it over the next several years, Germany more than most.
Saying there was never any chance of a change of policy in Germany is not serious.
> In the Russians' mind it gives them the "moral high ground" rather than humiliation and makes out the West to be the villain. This is typical Russian logic.
I am not a Russian, but would highly advise you to carefully choose your words about any nation and their beliefs/logic.
> On the other side there is no rational reason for the West to destroy the pipelines
If you can't find reason, doesn't mean there is no reason. I could also ask same question there was no reason for NATO expansion because war ended, no reason for EU/US not to support diplomatic actions, instead of pushing to the war.
> The explosions benefit Russia because it gives them cover for a permanent stop to supplying Germany with gas,
Russia is still supplying gas to Europe (and indirectly to Germany) through Ukrainian pipelines that operate normally. Despite all the carnage of war neither side attacked the pipelines. War is war and business is business.
It does not benefit Russia. It benefits Putin by removing a motivation for other Moscow elites to depose him. They can't make a deal with Europe to turn the gas back on in exchange for Europe supporting their new regime.
What is happening is that the thin line between Putin and Russians gets more and more blurred. When the war broke out in 24 February, there were a few protests, but they were quite scarce, and the opinion polls presented in Western media showed that Russians support Putin's war. Now after the mobilization things changed a bit, but it's very clear that many Russians, even well-educated, have soaked in a lot of what is being constantly broadcast in state media: that Ukrainians are subhuman Nazis that have been killing Russians for 8 years so Russia has no choice but save the children.
When you think of it, it's really sad. Because now that Russians have clearly realized that this is not any "special operation" but a real war, their war, and that they are going to die in it, it's already too late - it's even difficult to escape these days if you don't have ample resources.
I think it a bit self-contradictory that the Russian media always accuse the West of being Russophobic and at the same time air programs like this one:
> I can stop reading at this line to know that this isn't journalism, it's opinion at best
It's the "opinion" of pretty much everyone in the geopolitical community. Hardly propaganda.
And equating The Economist with Russia Today is just ludicrous and a sad demonstration of the effectiveness of the "Firehose of falsehood" propaganda technique employed by, well, guess who. (hint - same guys who blew up the pipeline)
>It's the "opinion" of pretty much everyone in the geopolitical community.
How exactly did Russia sneak so deep into enemy territory to blow it up and sneak back out again? Especially considering how incompetent we hear that they are in literally every single article written?
I've yet to read a single explanation of this, and in fact you would think we're not supposed to look on a map and ask ourselves this question since it doesn't seem to even be asked by "everyone in the geopolitical community".
You forget that Russia controls the ingress end of the pipelines. They could, and IMO almost certainly did, simply send maintenance "pigs" [1] laden with explosives and a timer down 3 of the 4 lines. No submarines necessary, they didn't even have to leave the office.
Honest question. Now that you know just how easy it was for Russia (and only Russia) to do, does that change your calculus a little?
The Swedish investigation determined there were explosions in the area, not from within the pipeline, so that would eliminate that. Also there is the pesky problem of how the US benefits from it while it hurts the Russians, so common sense would consider the motive.
Sure there were explosions, of course there were. The investigation has not released any information about the location - internal or external - please feel free to correct me. I was only demonstrating how easy it would have been for them, since others were going on about submarines and what not.
Russia had already shut off the gas, "hurting" themselves by your own logic. They have a long, proven history of irrational behaviour and false flag operations. And if the USA had done it, against all reason and logic, why didn't they finish the job?
Anyway, I did say almost certainly Russia. Who knows, could have been some faction in Germany or another EU power seeking to really force Germany's hand. But it seems far more likely to be the obvious actor with the means, motive and mindset who started the bloody war in the first place.
It is trivial to determine blast direction (inward vs outward), which is how Sweden was able to determine so quickly that the blast was from nearby, not from within (which eliminates your theory completely).
Also, everybody in Europe hates Russia so if the investigation had pointed to them that would have been shouted from the rooftops immediately. Instead, the details of the report has been hidden from public view and Russia was told they couldn't see it.
So really nothing would indicate Russia is behind it and everything indicates they're not.
Russia had already shut off the gas, "hurting" themselves by your own logic.
They shut it off which left them leverage (i.e. "play nice, we turn it back on"). Blowing it up removes that option and removes all of their leverage.
Russia literally has submarines built for this type of purpose (e.g. the Belgorod). And yes, their armed forces are a clown fest of incompetence, but they still have the occasional hit/stroke of luck. They do genuinely produce some good equipment (e.g. BMP-3) that is easy to maintain, where they fail mostly is around the human factor.
Sounds like US/NATO are incompetent then if they let Russia sneak in that deep and blow up a crucial pipeline in the middle of a war, all without a trace.
Fortunately the US benefits the most from this so that was very considerate of Russia, I guess. To sabotage themselves for our benefit. Bold move.
When countries are at war, you don't get to see the opposing point of view. Being said by the opinion writer, is they don't deny the Kremlin did it. Which is on the face of it utterly false. They likely aren't lying and probably believe it to be true. It's really a sign of how bad journalism as become.
If the kremlin wants to shut down the pipeline, they simply shutdown. The sender and receivers are the last folks who will sabotage or damage.
So who did? It's going to be a well funded country with something to win.
Norway just got their pipe online literally 1 day after.
Canada/USA want to export their energy. Well not canada, they lack the capability.
Middle east? Maybe? Unlikely.
Climate groups? Very unlikely.
China or India? Absolutely. They are getting a huge discount on russian energy now.
> ... it's opinion at best and propaganda at worst. I expect better
Life is going to be one long series of disappointments for you. Well done for engaging your critical thinking faculties, but expecting unbiased facts is, well, naïve.
Keep being sceptical. Especially of the things you want to believe.
It's reasonable to assume that some govt did it, the number of options is small. The two likely suspects are the US or Russia.
Russia in active aggressor in this conflict and has the most to gain by killing the pipeline since the gas they now still sell is more expensive and they have other places to ship the gas (if anyone know a reference to Russian gas exports, I'd like to see).
For America to do it is harder to believe (even though there is a video of Biden alluding that they will "shut it down"). Even though they might have what to gain from LNG exports - the destruction of the European economy is not something that will help the US in the mid/long-term.
> For America to do it is harder to believe (even though there is a video of Biden alluding that they will "shut it down")
It would be one of the few actions the US could take in 2022 that would have pretty much bi-partisan political support. That to me lends a level of credibility to the possibility along with Biden’s inability to handle off the cuff questions, even though I suspect that the likely culprit is not the US.
However there is zero doubt in my mind that there are a group of folks within the Biden administration who cringe every time he runs off script. It’s said that President Obama once said “Never underestimate Joe Biden’s ability to fuck something up”.
On the Nordstream explosion, Russia continued to push gas into the pipeline after the explosion. Why, if it is broken, lose that gas to kill a whole ecosystem close the Danish / Swedish exclusive zones?
Also which other country does have an interest in cutting internet cables between Europe and the US?
Garbled mess of an article. The headline and the first paragraph is about fossil fuel infrastructure, but all the rest is about submarine communications cables. And it is incoherent.
Why would he? The fact that you want something for a very good reason doesn't mean it will happen.
People often have a hard time accepting that a problem may not have a solution. The nuclear threats from this f**** regime are a good example: simply yielding to them doesn't actually decrease the risk of a nuclear exchange, it merely postpones it.
Title: Zscaler CEO: ‘Major’ EU Internet Cable Cut Was ‘Act Of Vandalism’
Most incidents of cuts in internet cables usually have benign causes but given recent hostilities it's worth keeping an eye on whether these incidents start becoming far more common than they have been historically.
That is what I thought as well and I similarly discounted the likelihood that Russia did this but I have changed my opinion on this particularly because I don't think Germany is actually going to run into (a lot of) trouble this Winter and probably also not next winter. And if Russia agrees that this is likely to be the case and also that there is not likely going to be gas deliveries through North Stream in the coming years then destroying it could at least serve the purpose of increasing doubt and creating uncertainty especially if it could be pinned on other actors (i.e. the US).
Here is why I think Germany will be relatively ok:
German source on Zeit.de showing gas deliveries from other countries making up a big chunk of Russian deliveries and German gas reserves being almost full and gas demand being ~25% under the average demand in the past years (probably largely due to the price of course). https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-deutschland-ga...
Additionally LNG terminals are due to come live in December (if there won't be delays).
The storage provides 2-3 months' worth of gas. It being full is not enough to ride out a rough winter without rationing. Meanwhile even with a new LNG container port they still have to pay through the nose for all that American LNG.
Germany will probably survive without a rash of people freezing to death but economically it is going to suffer very, very badly.
Dunno. I mean, it's all speculation, and I see how it could be many other actors. But imagine someone blowing up a German wind farm, and the German government saying, "hmm". Russia is generally quick to anger.
Also the political risk for everyone else seems suicidally high.
So how exactly would Russia get away with it undetected? Looking on a map, they would have been deep into enemy territory undetected before and after. That strains credulity to say the least.
All we hear from our esteemed journalists is how incompetent Russia is, until they need us to believe they snuck past everyone in the middle of war time undetected.
After Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany said it permanently won’t support the opening of Nord Stream 2. NS2 has been Putin’s number one priority for opening so he could deliver gas to Europe while sidestepping Ukraine.
This is another example of "Navernoye, seno vkusno pakhlo" -- a flippant remark about danger, the final sentence of the autobiography/memoir that Putin published in 2000, to introduce himself to Russia, and the world. He was trying to establish a reputation as a man who could be wild and unpredictable, therefore you would never want to play a game of chicken with him, because you could not be sure how far he would take it.
This is from the well-regarded Fiona Hill / Clark Gifford book:
----------
In fact, the Putin book turns out to be the only source for this story, something that ought to have set off alarm bells. Ot pervogo litsa was intended to be a campaign biography, or “semi–autobiography.” The publication of the book was orchestrated by Putin’s staff in the spring of 2000 based on a series of one–on–one interviews with a carefully selected troika of Russian journalists. Putin’s team’s task was to stage–manage the initial presentation, to all of Russia, of this relatively unknown person who was now standing for election as president of the country. It was crafted as a set of conversations with Putin himself, his wife, and other people close to him in his childhood and early life. Every vignette, every new fact presented in the book was chosen for a specific political purpose. The journalists who interviewed Putin also used some of the material for articles in their own newspapers and other publications.
What, then, could Putin’s purpose have been in revealing such a character flaw? The answer becomes evident when one reflects on the curious ending of the book. Ot pervogo litsa ends with the interviewers noting that Putin seems, after all the episodes in his life that they have gone through, to be a predictable and rather boring person. Had he never done anything on a whim perhaps? Putin responded by recounting an incident when he risked his own life and that of his passenger, his martial arts coach, while driving on a road outside Leningrad (in fact when he was at university). He tried to grab a piece of hay through his open car window from a passing truck and very nearly lost control of the car. At the end of the harrowing ride, his white–faced (and presumably furious) coach turned to Putin and said, “You take risks.” Why did Putin do that? “I guess I thought the hay smelled good” (Navernoye, seno vkusno pakhlo), said Putin. This is the last line in the book. The reader clearly is meant to identify with Putin’s coach and ask: “Wait! What was that all about? Just who is this guy?”
Putin can't win the war against Ukraine. For decades, he's struggling to make Russia into a place that's actually nice to live in - free from organised crime, with growth prospects, innovation, free media.
So instead he'll level the gap against the West by burning it. Ah no he can't do that, he'll go around cutting cables and blowing up pipes.
Surely Russia will be declaring war on the West if this happens. Certainly a load of Russian naval assets will be sunk if they start cutting Internet cables and attacking Norway’s gas infrastructure is an attack on NATO and would elicit an equivalent response against Russian gas infrastructure. It can’t be done without WW3.
Or is Putin assuming he can behave like a gangster and eventually we’ll back down? I’m not sure this is possible given that any sign of weakness leads to more threats.
The threat is there, sure, but they have to understand that escalation like this will and has to lead to escalation from the West, otherwise we are showing Russia can do what it likes without costs. Or we can just appease them and watch them try to destroy our way of life anyway.
They are already paying the price: hydrocarbons are mostly gone as a source of income; besides they cannot even spend that income due to sanctions. And yet they continue the "hybrid war". I'm on your side, but I'm also realistic.
Higher prices on the open market yes, but not enough to offset the volume loss. A good chunk of new volume is sold to China, which buys at staggering discounts (as high as 50% over market rates).
> equivalent response against Russian gas infrastructure. It can’t be done without WW3.
In terms of equivalent / proportional response, RU can fuck with maritime infra and disproportionately disrupt NATO countries more reliant on imports and trade flows / connectivitiy. NATO would have to escalate to disrupting RU within RU soil, or hit one of their critical connections to PRC which would be... bold.
Disrupts maritime infrastructure and NATO would start escorting Russian ships home. If not straight up convert their navy into a submarine only fleet.
I don't think the west would take kindly to commerce raiders, or cutting of cables.
If Russian forces NATO to make a kinetic response, then what is Russia's next play?
It's probably fine for Russian propaganda to claim they are fighting NATO in Ukraine, but that line becomes much harder to keep if they are suddenly fighting NATO.
The question was about equivalent / proportional response, for which RU has more leverage and impose more costs by virtue of being more resource/economically autarkic. NATO of course free to escalate if they think they can win the escalation game (i.e. sinking RU fleet), then it's a question of how far RU willing to go to fight NATO, in which case it's matter of who has more to lose and can stomach more loss, up to and including tactical nukes. Does RU want full spectrum fight with NATO that could go nuclear? Probably not, but does RU think it can sabatoge NATO maritime infra with managable conesquences, IMO yes. NATO propaganda will also have to work hard trying to rationalize going into recession for a buffer state versus going war with a nuclear state.
The civilized world must respond, no questions about that. However, the idea of "WW3" is wrong and helps the Russian regime to instigate the fears in our societies. Unfortunately, it was echoed even by some top politicians. Let's put it this way:
- Before all sanctions, the Russian economy was about the same size as the Italian economy. Russia barely has any allies: Belarus and to some extent Iran (with some vocal supporters like Venezuela or Syria, but they have nothing substantial to offer). Neither China nor India will back Russia. You can see how isolated Russia is in the United Nations (e.g. UNGA Resolution ES-11/4).
- Russia has lost most of its conventional military capacity and capability in Ukraine. Russia is nowhere near the Soviet Union with its Warsaw Pact satellites. The illusion of its mighty power was based on propaganda. To the point where Putin himself began believe his own propaganda and Russia's invincibility.
- Yet, they threaten NATO and the aligned countries. NATO is a military superpower. These countries combined (USA, EU, UK) have a population of ~1 billion people. It is also nearly a half of the world economy.
Funnily enough, before WWII I suspect a lot of people in Europe were predicting there would be no WWII because the consequences would be so horrific for the Germans that it just wouldn't happen. Then the Germans did it anyway. The outcomes were somewhat predictable - all their leadership was killed and their state was dismantled.
Just because the consequences for Russia would be unimaginably bad doesn't mean much. What is important is that the de-escalation happens. And part of that involves listening to what the Russians are saying earnestly, rather than going with millennia of monkey-instincts that say to stop listening to the out group when times are tough.
This is not the 1930s anymore. Just look at murder rates even in Russia.
People are much more satisfied/apathetic, they won't collectively risk their quality of life for a war.
The biggest predictor of mass violence (war) is your run of the mill daily violence (murders, revolts, terrorism etc), those are at historic minimums.
The second biggest predictor is trust in institutions, which also is at an all time low. This is especially true in Russia, but also in the West. The shelf life of a POTUS is basically 2-6 months, that's how long the approval rating stays above 50%.
By the time the 1st anniversary of inauguration comes around every POTUS from now on will be around 35-38%. That has never been the case ever.
World War II wasn't just Germany. As a matter of fact, Poland was invanded jointly by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. I think you partly missed the point. Anyway..
It is certainly important to de-escalate, but it cannot happen under the Russian terms. The current war in Ukraine is a war of conquest. Moreover, it is genocidal (as dictator in Russia is questining the very existance of the Ukrainian nation). There must be serious consequences for this, otherwise we just go one or rather two centuries back when invading, conquering territories and enslaving the local populations was a norm.
A slight clarification on Poland timeline. It was a more nuanced thing and it was not a coordinated attack from two sides on the same time as frequently claimed.
Poland was invaded by Germany on Sep 1 and when they overran the designated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact borders Russians occupied the rest of the country beginning on Sep 17th.
No major fighting occured between the Russians and the Polish army during the russian occupation.
It doensn't change the end result, occupation by both countries, but they're some accounts that Stalin was hesitant to send his troops early.
Lucky everything is relaxed in the Asia-Pacific is relaxed and there is no risk of conflict rising up there for any reason! Otherwise I'd be scared.
Except for the China-Taiwan thing and the concerning risk of an unstable China after their COVID policies. We're very close to a really ugly situation.
Russia is isolated in the Ukraine conflict, but not in opposing the US military.
It's very tricky to forecast the future. Maybe China decides a war between NATO and Russia is a good opportunity to attack Taiwan? Maybe India is forced into play by one of these events? Then we have middle east very close to being involved as well. Voila - WW3!
Agreed on WW3. But they still may have enough nuclear weapons that they could end the world as we know it. I'm not saying that means the rest of us have to do anything in particular, but it's something that has to factor into the analysis.
Iran and India are trying to see what they can get out of Russia. China is ready to pounce at the smallest sign of weakness. Belarus needs Russia but doesn't want to get dragged into their war.
Russia has no allies on the world, only common enemy relations.
You think Joe Biden would order a covert operation like this? Or that the CIA is so off the leash that they'd do something like this without cover?
I look around at the plausible suspects - Ukraine, Germany, France, U.K., Poland, Russia and one of the Baltics - and then I think about who's capable of doing this without a huge chance of rock solid proof of their guilt coming to light.
That gets me to either Poland or Russia. Poland has motive (keep Europe split from Russia), presumably ability and if it did come to light that they did it it would be really bad but not existential (I think Ukraine is out because undeniable proof of their guilt might cause real headaches for them)
Russia is odder because of motive. I can see two. One is financial - my understanding is that having a "third" party cut off the gas rather then they themselves doing it will allow them to walk away from contracts on futures. The second motive is that this is another "Cortez burning his ships" type move - something that makes rapprochement with the West harder and so gives anyone wanting that a tougher job.
> Well, I'd argue that few doubt that the USA did it.
Not a single credible analyst I know of believes the USA did it. Considering the (excessive, IMO) care they've taken to avoid any escalatory actions they've demonstrated so far, it would be incredibly foolish and out of character.
Russia, on the other hand, is run by a reckless maniac who delights in chaos and constantly and provably lies about everything, all the time. So unless you have some very very compelling evidence or even theories to the contrary, I (and everyone else with even the slightest knowledge of these matters) will assume the crazy, lying bad guy who demonstrably did these other 100 bad things did this one, too.
Says the person promoting Ivermectin as COVID cure in their post history. What is the odds someone would believe in two cases of Russian misinformation, I wonder.
To be honest, in the case of the explosions, this is what most of the world believes. It doesn't make sense that russia sabotages its own infrastructure.
It does make sense for russia (or at least Gazprom). They've cut deliveries through the gas pipelines anyway. Now they might have needed a reason not to pay penalties for contract violation. By blaming random terrorists or the US they can claim technical issues beyond their control.
I think most people assume Putin blew up the pipeline to limit the possibility of his would-be successors being able to sell gas/oil to the West. And Putin has probably rigged the other pipelines with explosives. Otherwise the incentive is too strong: someone in the FSB or the military could kill Putin and start selling unlimited amounts of oil/gas to the West. Putin is well aware how easy life is going to be for his successor, unless he takes steps to limit their options.
From a succession perspective I can see the argument. That said, he has limited his own options. For this whole time, Putin has tried to negotiate, the gas with sanctions lifting and stopping ukraine help from europe. He has lost his only leverage. It would make more sense that the US or ukraine did it, in order to corner russia.
Not really, it could even be the Chinese if you want to get really conspiratorial.
However, looking at the behaviour of Russia recently with their non-linear war, $300m spent on information warfare, invasion of Ukraine, support of dictatorship abroad etc. who is the more likely to have bombed this infrastructure is highly debatable at least.
It shows that he is willing to cross (another) border we didn't think he would cross. The motivation is to cause fear, uncertainty, and doubt in western countries, lowering support for Ukraine. Here in Norway we are definitely more worried than we were before, so that part of it is working. Will it help him split the west? Will more and more people speak out against supporting Ukraine? Fear can be a powerful motivator. Time will tell.
Ivermectin was never Russian misinformation. There were a huge number of studies showing that giving people Ivermectin improved their COVID outcomes. It just turned out that the important variable was whether their area had high background rates of parasite infection. There are large swathes of the world where giving someone Ivermectin on first COVID symptoms is a good strategy for giving them a better chance with the disease, and that isn't really open to question.
It just happens that Ivermectin doesn't do anything directly, and the people who were promoting it were evidence-based rather than correct. If Russia's "misinformation" is providing large amounts of true evidence then we need more of that.
do you honestly believe that Russia would shoot itself in the foot? you may want to inject some sense of skepticism in what you read in the CIA-driven news outlets
Here's a CSPAN video from 8 months ago of Biden telling a reporter that if Russia invades Ukraine the US will "put and end to" the nord stream pipeline.
I don't subscribe to it, but the core of the conspiracy theory is that it prevents Europe from restarting the gas pipeline out of desperation when they freeze this winter.
Freezing Europeans can't beg Russians for gas if the pipelines are broken.
Joe Biden was vocally against the pipelines. It's not a stretch at all, but let's just forget he said what he said, hey?
The conspiracy theory is that Russia destroyed a functional pipeline that it had complete control of. Why are the Swedes hiding their findings? The idea that they are covering for Russia is ridiculous.
>Are you saying Putin hasn’t used threats to cut gas supplies to Europe to attempt to deter the West from helping Ukraine?
If that was addressed to me: I'm pointing out [for the nth time] that, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU and UK announced their intentions to completely stop buying Russian gas & oil. This has now been spun into the narrative that [as I quoted above, from the Economist article] "It [Russia] has used cuts in gas supplies, or the threat of them, to try to blackmail Europe since the early days of its invasion of Ukraine..."
This is the exact opposite of the truth. Russia continued to supply oil & gas and pledged to keep on doing so, right from day 1 of the invasion of Ukraine. It was the EU & UK which decided to weaponise energy supplies and they are now suffering the consequences. Hence the 'Ministry of Truth' version of events that we're seeing now, repeated over and over again til it becomes fact.
Amusing also that pointing this out gets your post downvoted and flagged to oblivion. Kind of reinforces my point, no?
The administration had previously waived some recommended sanctions on Nord Stream 2. Presumably they'd enact new sanctions that would make it impossible to operate the pipeline.
Sanctions. Not sure on what exactly, but could be for example on the compressor turbines.
North America (US and Canada) is a powerhouse in hydrocarbon technology. A lot of the fields in Russia are running Schlumberger technology. We'll see how that goes forward in the sanctions world, will probably end up nationalized/stolen like the various Boeings and Airbuses from European leasing companies.
I can stop reading at this line to know that this isn't journalism, it's opinion at best and propaganda at worst. I expect better from HN.
At this point if Moscow gets obliterated in a Nuclear Mushroom cloud, I expect the next mornings headlines to be "And here's how Russia benefits from this"